—BNJMN.ME

PROOF: 84 Reasons

During my senior year at Ringling College of Art + Design, I was one of five students selected to work in the Ringling College Design Center. Our task was to concept and design a new set of recruitment materials that would attract prospective students to the college. I designed two books that were to be mailed in succession. The first of these, “PROOF: 84 Reasons why you should study Art & Design” contains interviews and messages from over 70 current students, alumni, recruiters and industry leaders that stress the value of a design education as it relates to a career in the field.

The structure of this book’s layout is based on a very flexible (but very rigid) 12 column grid with alternating colors, shapes and images that allow for very playful and interesting compositions overall. The cover features a die-cut ’84′ that adds to the colorful exterior.

Ringling— Look Book

The Ringling College of Art + Design “Look Book” contains a hundreds of heavily gridded pages of student gallery work, sketchbook work, and general information about the college. This publication is intended to follow the previous “84 Reasons why you should study Art & Design” booklet to allow prospective students a chance to see what kind of work they’ll be able to do at Ringling.

I was able to design two alternating-color covers that allowed for variation with mailing. The overall theme for the recruitment materials is the concept of “Discovery” both of Ringling and the artist that lives inside of you. The cover reads “Discover Yourself.”

Kabuki Iron Kolors

Posters, album/book packaging and branding system for Kabuki Iron Kolors, a space and time traveling hip hop emcee from Brooklyn, New York City. I created an aesthetic that lent itself well to the ethereal nature of the artist as well as something that could be more complex and visual. Within these confines I explored the use of optical illusions and red/blue color channels in order to interact with the viewer.

The album/book packaging was developed for the 3rd installation of his “Story Hour Tapes” (a series of 13) entitled “The Space Owl.” I used a process known as scanimation to achieve an animated image on the flat page. Each opened spread, when image and text are paired, is meant to tell the story of Kabuki, as well as the other characters from this episode.

Meta Cult

Choose or create a sound clip from 16-18 seconds in length and creating a dynamic video that relays the message and feel of the clip. Naturally, given the nature of the clip, I chose to create a video that feels fast paced and broken, much like the chaotic feeling of the clip. The quote that I chose is meant to relay the message further, speaking of technology as a means of reinvention, much like the pieces themselves within the clip that change rapidly and take on new forms.

WBEZ/NPR Infographic

Originally slated as a “Save NPR” poster, I reinterpreted the traditional cause poster into something that was both functional and informative. Above all, this poster functions as the weekly programming schedule of WBEZ Chicago, a superb NPR station in Chicago. I developed the schedule into an experimental, circular system that could be hung based on the time of day. The poster is separated by either AM/PM programming and is further subdivided into the types of programming/categories by color.

I am not an artist.

A short documentary of a process with master printer, Jill Lerner. I wanted to focus on the intricate/personal process that is involved in preparing and printing another artist’s work in her home studio. I also created a miniature book that chronicles each part of the process. Each spread juxtaposes a video still and a scan of an object from the printing process.

Maldito Typeface

In Spanish, ‘Maldito’ means ‘Cursed’. I pulled a lot of Spanish cultural reference in order to create this typeface. The outcome of this process allowed me to explore my own fascinations with death, religion, and superstitions. For the sake of authenticity, I have used it exclusively in Spanish and intend for it’s use to be limited to Spanish only. Please e-mail me if you’d like a copy.

Realizations

Create a series of typographic compositions taken from type found on one street in your area. Next, write a story about your experience and present it within a creative grid system. Finally, take a classmates story and combine it with your own.

Fly & Mighty

Fly & Mighty is the all-knowing paper version of a contemporary store for hipsters. This project takes form with constructible paper fashions and other modular paper forms to enhance the underlying concept.

I have always been fascinated by why so many are willing to follow blindly, ignoring tell-tail signs of unoriginality to become members of a genre with no rational basis for existence. Through my own personal experience, I began to understand that there is very little that is unique to the hipster subculture and despite this seemingly huge discrepancy, so many still hold it so dear. From a purely visual point of view, I felt that the most relatable format of exploration would be one that could market this trend to the masses. What better way then to put every piece into a brightly colored catalog, full of questionable, vulgar and over the top images and messages that drive home the intended notions that this is a one stop shop for all things cool. Bright colors and tweaked versions of familiar staples play back into the fashion, attracting viewers and potential customers.

Time Life: Earth

Redesign of a classic TimeLife book from the 1970′s. The main focus of this assignment was to work with large amounts of text as well as contemporary images to create an interesting visual system.

Sense of Place

I spent 8 hours on my couch and subsequently wrote about the experience. Based on this writing, I developed a visual representation of this experience. Each spread from this experimental poster booklet explores a different emotion or idea that I attach with my experience with the couch. I think of this piece as a stream of consciousness.
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Photography

I am by no means a photographer, but I do enjoy taking some candid shots on my Pentax K1000. These are a few of my favorite shots from over the years.